


a mosaic of chaos and sexual tension

by tea_tales_and_whales



Series: catch me a break [2]
Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Recreational Drug Use, body image issues, canon-typical assholery, mild feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_tales_and_whales/pseuds/tea_tales_and_whales
Summary: Post-Tragical History. It's a day of fuck-ups for Cyril, beginning with the whole Spelvin fiasco and ending with an ill-advised conversation with his dad. One would think Cyril could manage to arrange a simple booty call but even that proves too much. Nevertheless, the results prove fruitful - much like an endless parade of cocktails with booze-soaked coworkers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Referenced past-relationship between Cheryl and Krieger.

Perhaps it’s the soak in Spelvin’s huge tub, but Archer seems different when he comes back to the main floor in search of some sort of liquor. Not as intimidating somehow. He’s shiny and damp, steam rising from his corded shoulders, with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair is wet and ruffled. He looks very relaxed, at least until he startles when he sees Cyril sitting on the floor beside Spelvin’s still-sparking server.

“What are you still doing here?”

“If you’re going to tell everyone about this anyway, I'm keeping the money.” Cyril blurts it all out in a rush as he climbs to his feet, not giving the words time to catch in his mouth and trip all over the place. Archer ducks behind the bar and comes back up laughing, a bottle of high-proof sake in his hand.

“Are you serious? Cyril, I am _entitled_ to that money. Not to mention that even if you _have_ learned something from all this, I don’t see any good coming out of rewarding you for your bad behaviour. You wouldn’t see us giving out cash to Beethoven if he’d let little Emily drown in the babysitter’s pool -”

Nothing is so effective at derailing Cyril’s train of thought as Archer. It’s like he confounds the very conventions of logical mind jumps.  

“ _Wh_ _at_ are you talking about?”

“Oh my God, Cyril. The dog. _Beethoven_. Beloved childhood classic movie. He saved - “

“Why would you give a _dog_ fifty grand?” Cyril can already feel his blood pressure rising. That was never something that ran in the Figgis family. It was never a damn problem before Cyril took this job.

“I don’t know, Cyril! Presumably they have their own expenses we’re not privy to. But you’ve clearly missed my point, Cyril, which _is_ you’re a little bitch!”

“Archer -”

“Oh and that rewarding good behaviour is a good way to train dogs. I assume. Dunno how well it’d work with humans though but I thought the comparison worth noting.”

“Archer!”

“Fine, Cyril! If you’re determined to be a little bitch about it, I won’t tell anyone at the office how you almost brought down the entire agency from within. Happy now?” He drinks deep of the bottle in his hand, not bothered with finding a glass. Glasses are reserved for scotch.

“No.” Cyril takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. He’s come this far. “I'm keeping the suits. And the shoes. And I want uh - forty five percent of the money.”

“Forty five?!” Archer’s voice cracks and sake slops down his chin. “Forty five percent?! For _what_ Cyril? For betraying America?! For running to me like a snotty little kid who shit in his diaper and wants me to clean it up? Cyril -” Archer’s eyes narrow dangerously, “- I should beat the shit out of you for merely suggesting it.”  

“If I _hadn’t_ told you, your identity would be privy to all enemy intelligence agencies around the world by now - well, just the agency who bought the drive from Spelvin - but still. I want my cut, Archer.”  

“You caused this whole mess!”

“Yeah and I did my part to fix it. Would _you_ have thought to destroy the server when it came down to it?”

“Probably, Cyril, the idea would have occurred to me. Eventually.”

“Well, from where I was standing it looked like you were just trying to get your dick wet with the sexy ninja twins!”

“Or just one of them! They might not have been comfortable with the whole sister thing -”

“Not good enough, Archer.”

“I swear to god, Cyril, I will go straight to mother -”

“I’ll tell her myself, Archer, goddamn it! If you’re going to hang that over my head for the rest of my life, I’ll tell her myself and damn the consequences.”

“Okay there Mr...wait. Damn it. I had something for this. Whatever. The point is moot seeing as I could just shoot you.” Seemingly from nowhere, he produces Spelvin’s gun and cocks it, aiming, Cyril assumes, right at his chest. Cyril rolls his eyes, unflinching.

“With what? You’re out of bullets.”

“Oh right. Damn it. Fine, with my bare hands then.”

“Go ahead. And as you gloat over my lifeless corpse I hope the thrill you feel at killing me is enough to cancel out your disappointment when you realise that you have no way of knowing where I hid the rest of the money.”

“First of all, your death would bring me immense satisfaction, Cyril. It might actually even cancel out losing nearly fifty grand I didn’t technically own in the first place-”

“Well, say goodbye to getting paid for the next several months then.”

“What?”

“Payroll, dumbass,” Cyril snaps, vicious and pleased to be the one to hold the figurative strings of Archer’s purse. “I'm the one who makes sure you get your direct deposit every month. There are several inputs I haven’t done yet, including yours. You think Malory can replace me with someone quickly enough that you can keep swilling booze and hiring hookers not on your mother’s dime for the rest of the year?”

“Ugh. Goddamn it. Fine. Keep your suits and your shoes. They’re probably shitty and hideous anyway. Nothing even a great tailor or cordwainer could fix -" 

“And the forty five percent?”

“Are you on crack? No seriously. Hell no! Think more like twenty -”

“Forty."

“Twenty five then.”

“I will let you wear me down to thirty-five but I am not going any lower than that."

“Thirty.”

“I said thirty-five!”

“God, I could and would argue this all day, Cyril -” Archer cuts off abruptly, grimacing and prodding at the livid edge of the wound where he yanked the throwing star out of his shoulder. “But you’re lucky I'm actually in enough pain to not want to. Thirty five it is and I hope you choke on it.”

“And we don’t tell anyone at the office what happened here?”

“Ohhhh no, that was entirely dependent on you paying me the fifty grand. The first thing I'm going to do when I get back to the office is tell Pam -”

“Archer! You were going to tell everyone anyway even if I did pay you!”

“Yeah until you reminded me that you hadn’t actually given me the money yet. Now that you have reminded me, I am perfectly willing to keep _this_ between us if you cough up. So what’s it gonna be, Cyril? The money or my silence?”

He’s grinning now, like a card shark with an ace up his sleeve he’s just slipped into play. Smarmy and smug, keeping his predatory gaze locked on Cyril even as he necks sake straight from the bottle at what is almost a sixty degree angle. Acid burns at the back of Cyril’s throat but he forces himself to swallow and breathe in, slow and deep, then exhale. He’d almost not wanted it to come to this.

“Fine. Okay, Archer, how about this: I go to Malory and I tell her George Spelvin came to me last night and offered me fifty grand to put a virus on ISIS’s mainframe as part of a marketing campaign. I tell her I refused and then went to the office last night to get some last minute paperwork finished before morning, not realising Spelvin had one of his ninja girlfriends switch out my portable driver for one of his own virus-infected ones. I then tell her that, this morning, seeing the virus on all the office computers, I realise what must have happened and I track down Spelvin to ask him _what gives man?_ Well, he tells me it’s all just part of his way of being able to sell security system upgrades and offers me the fifty grand again to keep quiet until he gets around to selling ISIS a better security system. Well, it’s at this point in the story that I call you and ask for your advise, which - and this is the good part - turns out to be _take the money, Cyril. What’s the harm?_ you say. And you make me split it with you so you don’t tell Ms. Archer that I'm the unwitting fool who accidentally got a stupid virus on our mainframe. Then it turns out that Spelvin was lying and the identities of all our agents are in jeopardy, including yours, and, long story short, you came here with me to destroy the server which, actually, _I_ ended up doing because _you_ were two busy fighting Spelvin and his sexy, half-naked ninja twins. Oh, and I'll also tell her you ended up taking the whole fifty grand because you, quote, _did all the work_.”

He clears his throat, unsure when his voice had grown so deep and guttural. Finishing up, it feels like the world has come rushing back from a long way off. It’s like he’s resurfaced from the depths of a dark, dark ocean and the first thing he sees is Archer gaping at him, bright blue eyes luminously wide. He looks like a deer caught in the glare of a truck’s oncoming headlights. Then Archer laughs, thin and skeptical.

“What? Are you crazy? Mother would never believe -” he stops short. “Oh my God...she’d totally believe it.”

“ _Right?_ ” Cyril can’t keep the enthusiasm out of his voice. He’s so giddy he’s figuratively bouncing on his feet and clapping his hands. This is probably the riskiest thing he’s ever done and the adrenaline rush is breathtaking. “She totally would -” 

“ _She absolutely would_.” Archer looks like the foundations of his entire world are shattering. “She believes that I lie to her about everything on principle and that you’re a spineless dweeb incapable of lying.”

“She’d straight up kill you -”

“And then _I_ would kill _you_ , Cyril.”

“Which brings us back to the fact that you then wouldn’t get paid for months because, again, _payroll_ and Ms Archer definitely won’t let you drink and hire hookers using _her_ money, especially not after this stunt.” Cyril pauses to let that sink in, watching the gears click and turn inside Archer’s skull. “Which means -?”  

“Son of a bitch!” Archer throws down the now empty sake bottle and swears again at the completely unsatisfying, not-shattered thunk it makes against the hardwood floor. “Fine! Thirty five percent, you can keep your stupid suits and shoes, and I don’t say a word to mother or anyone else at the office.”

Cyril smiles, contented.

“Thank you.”

“Shut up. If I wasn’t so angry right now I might actually be sort of impressed at the half a spine you seem to have grown in the last hour I spent upstairs. However, as it so happens, this whole conversation has left me feeling _dirty_ again, Cyril, so I'm going to go and take another bath. If you’re still here by the time I come downstairs, I will literally - no Cyril, look at me; look me in the eye - _literally_ throw you out of the window. Do you understand?”

 

* * *

 

“Yes, yes. Definitely. _This_ will go nicely with a seafood paella,” Cyril says to himself decisively as he plucks the bottle of rioja red off the shelf. It’s a bit pricey but to hell with it. He’s almost twenty grand richer and he’s going to treat himself tonight. Good wine, fancy home-cooked food, a decadent chocolate torte from an expensive bakery. Cyril feels like he’s dreamily floating the whole subway ride home with his groceries.

There’s an office girl sitting across from where he’s standing with his paper bags. Moody-eyed, brunette, and wearing black leather pumps with her charcoal pencil skirt. Their eyes meet briefly and Cyril smiles at her with all the goodwill in the world and feels his spirits rise higher at the way her lips quirk up and how she shyly tucks her hair behind her ear.

He takes off his sweater vest and tie and puts on Latin music when he gets home and sings along here and there as he cooks. The kitchen is too small for any actual dancing, but he manages some cheerful shimmying at the catchiest tunes. His apartment is warmed through thanks to the suffusing heat of the oven and fragrant with saffron and garlic by the time the food is ready, which he plates and eats in the one spot in the apartment that makes up for all the downfalls. It’s a tiny breakfast nook, just big enough for a table and two chairs, beside a luxuriously large window, the biggest in the whole apartment. Sitting on the deep-set window sill and soaking up the day’s light are just a few of Cyril’s plants.

Sophia, Rocío, and Manuel are his chubby little succulents, resplendent in rosy pinks and oranges at the tips of their leaves. Pierre is the spider plant, long tendrils lovingly and artfully draped over the sill in a cascade of green. Annie, a delicate purple orchid, brings up the rear of the little group. Cyril reaches and idly strokes her leaves as he eats, checking that she’s healthy.

They’re not the extent of Cyril’s plants by any means. Theodosia, the peace lily, and Marguerite, another succulent, keep each other company on top of the dresser in the bedroom. Ancalagon, a little dragon tree, stands between Cyril’s bookshelves, while Günter and Hans, spindly-stemmed calatheas, mind their own side tables flanking the couch. Sterling, a tiny cactus, named for the larger prick in Cyril’s life, sits on his coffee table.

Talking to plants is healthy. It’s good for them.

“It was a good day,” Cyril tells the ones closest to him contentedly. “Well. It started well and it ended very well, if I do say so myself. The middle was somewhat...let’s say stressful but I think, overall, quite informative.”

He takes a sip of wine, which is delicious, and makes a mental note to buy it again in the future.

“I should -” he stops. He swirls his wine thoughtfully, watching the glossy film coat the inside of the glass. The one problem with plants - and there is only _one_ , no matter what anyone says; plants are better companions than animals, what with the lack of shedding and all - is that they don’t talk back.

It takes him a moment to find in his phone the number he rarely calls and his stomach clenches guiltily at the fact. Listening to the electronic ring after he dials the number, he can hear in his head the sound of his father’s old rotary phone echoing throughout the empty house where he grew up.  

“Figgis. Who’s speaking?”

Cyril starts. He isn't expecting an answer so quickly, if at all. It isn't that late but Mr Figgis likes to keep particular hours - early to bed and early to rise.

“Cyril, sir - _dad_ ,” he corrects himself, grimacing. “It’s me. Cyril. Hello.”

“Cyril? This is a surprise.”

“H-how are you, dad? How’s the district?” General inquiries about Mr Figgis’ job as superintendent are just about all the small talk Cyril’s father can stomach.

“Few hundred more students this year than last. Grade scores are down across the board. It’s quantity over quality with the youth these days, I'm afraid. They haven’t got a brain between them but that’s what I'm here for.”

“Right -”

“But I’m about as well as I can be. What are you calling for then, boy? Did you finally find a girl and marry her? Can I expect a grandchild soon, Cyril?”

“Nothing so special, you know,” Cyril laughs nervously at the thought, pushing away the intrusive images of all the women he’s ruined his chances with, and rubs his sweaty palms on his trousers. “I just had a swell day and -”

“Working hard or hardly working, Cyril?” Mr Figgis huffs irately. “Unless this swell day includes a promotion I don’t know what else there is to talk about. I'm not the secretary with whom you gossip at the water cooler.”

“I know, I know. That’s not - sadly no, dad. No promotion. I'm the only - I’m the _head_ accountant - there’s no higher -”

“There’s always higher on the ladder, Cyril. Haven’t I always told you?

“You have.” Cyril grits his teeth and breathes out slowly. “It’s just - I just - I had a good day, dad, and I got to thinking about you and just thought I’d give you a call and see how you’re doing.”

“Well, that’s very thoughtful, Cyril. Dutiful.” He pauses and Cyril’s just about to jump in when Mr Figgis continues. “Did you go visit your mother?”

“That’s -” Cyril freezes, almost upsetting his wine glass. “Oh _God_ , the eighteenth! That was four days ago -”

“I gather by your tone that you didn’t.”

“Dad - dad I’m so sorry - I just -”

“No no, boy. That’s not an apology you owe to me though I cannot imagine a single reason to miss her _birthday_.”

“There - there isn’t. Just work. I was - I was in the office all of last weekend and I -”

“Ah, I see. I understand Cyril. I know that job keeps you _very_ busy. One would think you run the place for the amount of time you’re there.”

“Dad, I -” Cyril blurts out before stopping as though he’s bitten his tongue clean off. He might as well. What’s there to say? _Yeah dad, I endangered the American people by fucking over the secret agency I work for in exchange for a few seconds in the spotlight and fifty grand, only to fix it by the seat of my pants and lawyer-talk my much stupider ex-jockstrap co-worker into not blabbing about my fuck up and giving me not quite twenty grand - great fucking job. Aren’t you proud of me?_

“Yes, Cyril?”

“I - I’ll come down next month. For her - when she -” Cyril trails off. It’s still difficult to talk about, even decades on.

“You do that, Cyril.” If nothing else, Mr Figgis sounds placated. He’s using that casually businesslike tone Cyril has always heard him use with the students in his district: efficient, almost brusque, but like he’s jovial about it. Fatherly but distant. “Call me when you do and come for your supper, hmm?”

“Okay, dad.”

“Alright then. Take care now.”

“You too, dad. Goodbye -”

“Goodbye.”

Cyril swallows with difficulty, the ache of a sudden lump in his throat. He chases it down with too much wine and a rivulet dribbles down his chin which he roughly wipes away and coughs. It doesn’t really taste like anything now so he gets back up to fetch the bottle. He left his glass at the table and he’s not going back to get it - this pan of leftover paella isn’t going to eat itself straight off the stove - so he alternates between shoving heaping forkfuls of rice and shrimp into his mouth and washing them down with swigs straight from the bottle.

The paella is finished and he’s sitting on the floor in front of the fridge halfway through the chocolate torte when his trousers start to feel uncomfortably tight, so he shucks them off, careful not to knock over the almost empty bottle of rioja beside him. The tongue feels unpleasantly heavy, numb and buzzy, caked in the almost intolerably rich taste of chocolate and raspberry. Chewing the next joyless mouthful of dessert he forks into it, he peers down miserably at the plush drape of his gut and the bulge of his waist over his underwear. He pinches a generous helping viciously between his fingers, insensate to how it stings, leaving a little posy of round, red marks.

Trinette’s retired, Jane never gave him her number, and Lana would just laugh herself sick before cursing him out, or just hanging up. He has Pam’s number for entirely work-appropriate reasons but she’d tell the whole office and that wouldn’t be so bad except then Lana would know and she’d look at him like he was even more disgusting than he feels. That leaves Cheryl. She won’t cuddle him after and it means he’s going to have to treat her nasty during the act, choke her and slap her a little bit, which is always cathartic and Cheryl enjoys it but Cyril always feels grosser on the inside - as opposed to the outside - after having done it.

Still, she’s always said some appreciative things about his hands when they’re around her throat and his dick when she’s riding it so...bonus? He gropes for his phone while necking what’s left of the wine straight from the bottle.

“Hello -”

“Cheryl? Hey, Cheryl, it’s Cyril - wow, I just realised our names sound super similar. That’s -”

“ - this is Cheryl’s phone -”

“ - damn it. Wait a second - Krieger?”

“ - please leave a message at the -"

“Krieger, you sound nothing like an automated messenger system. Krieger!”

“ - tone. Speaking of which, yours stinks -”

“What have you done with Cheryl? I know we joke and all, but you _are_ aware that human experimentation if the subject isn't aware of it is in direct violation of the Nuremberg Code, right?”

“Profoundly. Intimately. Now what do you want with her?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, now I'm just mildly concerned that she’s meat in a plastic bag and I want you to convince me otherwise -”

“What are you doing on my phone?” Cheryl’s voice rings sharp and nasally down the line like she’s saying it just over Krieger’s shoulder. Cyril finds himself curiously relieved to hear her, almost like he _was_ actually worried Krieger had used her organs to build, well, something. Cyril doesn’t know exactly what because _he’s_ not a weird guy in a lab coat and a doctorate that might not actually exist.

“It rang and I answered, babe -”

“Don’t you _babe_ me!” There’s a light thump and a soft pained noise out of Krieger. “Do I _look_ like a goddamn communist piglet who herds the lesser sheepdog proletariats?”

“How can you confuse _Babe_ and _Animal Farm_ ?” It takes Cyril a moment to realise that that’s Ray’s voice in the background, muffled but completely distinguishable. “ _B_ _abe_ is literally in the name - _Animal Farm_ isn’t named after the pig because it’s name was -”

“ _P_ _iggly_ -” Krieger says quietly, mournfully, sniffling. Nothing more is revealed on that particular subject because Ray’s irritable snap cuts Krieger off.

“No! It wasn’t Piggly -”

“Krieger! Who is it?!” Cheryl snarls, sounding so loud she could very well have been yelling right next to the mouthpiece.

“It’s Cyril,” Krieger presumably attempts to inform Cheryl only to be boisterously interrupted by Pam.

“No, not Cyril!” She says then makes a sound like she’s smothering a belch. “That wasn’t the name of the pig who dies -”

“It was Leon -” Cyril interjects, uncaring that that answer is incorrect after he’s had a moment to reflect and think about it. Instead, he lies back on the kitchen floor and marvels at how wrong even a simple booty call has gone. _Jeezy Petes_ , was it this hard for everybody to beg a girl who deigned to fuck you before for a bit of pity choke-sex when needed? Apparently not.

“Leon?” Krieger asks and the rest of the group explodes into shouting over each other.

“Leon!” Pam wails. “You were such a good boy -”

“No it wasn’t! It was -”

“Snowball!” Ray crows in triumph.

“Oh for the last time,” says Pam, hiccuping. “Snowball’s  _not_ a name. That’s something you do in truck -”

“Stop!” Ray yelps and Cyril groans a little bit in agreement.

“Exactly!”

“The pig’s name _was_ Snowball and he was an allegory for -” Krieger says only to be interrupted by Pam again.

“Leoooon! You made really delicious bacon but I still m-m-miss you!” Pam is ugly sobbing so Cyril closes his eyes and lets the sound wash over him. _Ditto, Pam. Ditto_.

“Jesus Christ -”

“SHUT UP, RAY. PAM - also shut up! Leon or Snowball or whoever is in a better place now or whatever and - ugh, Krieger! Who is on my damn phone?”

“It’s Cyril! He wants to know that you’re not meat in a plastic bag -”

“What?!” Cheryl shrieks, sounding like she’s going to start playing matchmaker between a gallon of gasoline and anything flammable in the vicinity - she gets that way when she’s confused and angry - as Pam and Ray start yelling in unison.

“Wait? Cyril? Is that Cyril?” Pam sounds very muffled and snotty. Not like hoity-toity, like literally dribbling snot.

“Hi Cyril!”

“Hi Pam, hi Ray,” Cyril mumbles, knowing there’s no way they’ve heard him. It doesn’t matter really. They said hi. That was nice.

“There. She’s alive,” Krieger says, sounding a little smug but mostly - “Happy? She wants to know what you want.”

“Yes, thank you Krieger, I can hear her.”

“Why the shit isn’t Cyril here?” Pam yells, suddenly sounding much louder and less sniffly.

“ _W_ _hy_ do you want Cyril to party with us so badly?”

“Hah! I wanna beat his bitch ass at darts again!”

“Cyril! Where are you? Krieger! You knew where we live! Do y’all know where Cyril lives?”

“Cyril! Come out, Cyril!” Pam demands before a loud noise bursts against Cyril’s ear like someone violently knocked against the phone Krieger’s holding. Krieger yelps but Ray shushes him aggressively. “Wait! I know where he lives - yeah, that’s the address. How did you know that? How did you enter that into your GPS so fast?”

“It’s preprogrammed. I know where he is the same way I knew where all of you live. It’s because I have a cam - _up there_! Traffic cam! Pam! Put your seat belt back on! Traffic cam -”

There’s another loud burst of sound, the distant howl of antagonized New York traffic, and a lot of yelling and swearing and suddenly Pam is shouting right in his ear.

“Cyril!”

“Ow! Jesus!”

“Seriously!”

“Cyril!” Pam is undeterred by the pain and anger she’s left in her wake, possibly by trampling people in an enclosed space. She sounds unbelievably excitable and Cyril can’t remember the last time someone spoke to him and sounded so enthusiastic. “Cyril! Quit jacking it - or whatever you’re doing - and put some pants on! You’re coming out -”

“Ray wishes - OW! JESUS!”

“Well!”

“Shut up ya dicknuts!” Pam’s clearly half covered the mouthpiece because she and the two subsequent slaps and their resulting yelps of pain are muffled. “I'm trying to talk to Cyril! Cyril are you there?!”

“Yes, Pam.” Cyril sighs, opening his eyes to gaze mournfully at the empty bottle of wine. Why didn’t he buy more? Why doesn’t he have more liquor in his apartment in general. “Of course I'm here -”

“Cyril, it’s my birthday! You gotta come party with us -”

“It’s your birthday?”

“Well, kinda. Not really. It’s actually next week but next week is peer review week and that’s no fun.”

“Pam, I really don’t -”

“Awww, Cyril, come on I was just kidding about the darts thing.” Pam wheedles and then hiccups. “Cyrillll, it’s my _birthday_ -”

“Pre-Birthday!” yells Cheryl in the background.

“- and it’s important to meee.”

“Well -”

“ _Please?_ Please please please?”

Ray loudly adds his bit: “Dukes, Cyril! Quit being such a damn sourpuss and getcha ass in some party pants!”

Even Krieger and Cheryl chime in with their own two cents until Cyril is effectively getting yelled at over the phone by four people, at least two or three of whom, Cyril can assume from past experience, are already halfway to wasted. With any luck, Krieger isn’t one of them seeing as he’s probably driving around in that super sketchy van of his. That said, if Krieger _is_ drunk and driving, then maybe once he’s picked up Cyril he’ll crash and kill them all in a glorious inferno. That sounds fucking blissful. In any case, all possibilities of death aside, leaving the apartment opens up brand new avenues of opportunity for more booze.

“Cyril?” Pam hisses, like in a stage whisper, as though she wants to be conspiratorial despite all the yelling going on. He’s apparently been quiet for just a little too long. “How you doin’, good buddy? You gonna come join us? We’re almost at your place.”

Well. If it’s important to Pam then -

“Okay fine.”

“Yaaaaaaay!”  

“I'm not wearing pants,” Cyril says to himself matter-of-factly after he’s hung up. The panic hits him a second or two later. “Oh shit! _I'm not wearing pants_.”

 

* * *

 

 _Exit...Van Left_ screeches to a halt at the curb about fifteen minutes later, the drum solo from _YYZ_ pounding so loud it’s audible from down the street. Cyril’s too drunk to jump back in fear of Krieger mounting the curb, so he just sways backwards on his feet and listens to the sound of someone yelling that the music be turned down and then another someone, or possibly two swearing someones, attempts to wrestle with the door before it slides open with a thunderous noise.

“Cyril!” Pam hollers into the night, grinning wildly, as music and the stank of weed spills out around her. There’s a giant thermos in her hand and another two just barely poking out of the massive handbag she has slung over her shoulder.

He holds out to her a half-empty bottle of absinthe he’d scrounged up from the back of his now-empty liquor cabinet - enough for a few of those atrocious _Green Russians_ she likes - and a hastily scribbled-in blank birthday card he’d forgotten all about in his desk.

“Happy Birthday, Pam,” he says, ignoring Cheryl howling _Pre-Birthday_ from inside the van.

Pam nearly flattens him with her bulk and the candy-scent of her perfume as she stumbles out of the van and hauls him in for a hug. In her four-inch strappy heels, she’s actually taller than him and he forgets how to breathe with his face crushed against her makeup-flavoured neck. When she finally releases him, he realises her hair is loose and curling around her shoulders. She’s got smoky eyeshadow going on - but whether that’s deliberate or more to do with her earlier crying isn’t obvious - and she’s wearing a soft, wrap-around black dress with a plunging neckline that, in a smaller size on a smaller woman, could be called slinky. On Pam, it accentuates how huge her tits are and sticks like glue to her other ample curves and wine-soaked Cyril is a little entranced.

“Control-top panties,” Pam says smugly, smoothing a hand over her stomach when she sees him looking. She’s had her nails done, long acrylics painted up in a French manicure style except for the pointer and middle finger on her right hand which, while painted, remain short. “Ain’t the sexiest but like any guy or gal’s gonna notice when I rip ‘em off and drown them in sploosh.”

“Ew, Pam!” Cheryl yells from inside the van and Krieger apparently concurs.

“Good God, woman -”

“You look nice,” Cyril tells her, and is surprised that he honestly means it.

“Well I should damn hope so! Cheryl’s birthday present to me was paying to get me to look this good and slutty!” She claps him on the back a little too hard before steering him toward the van. Between the two of them, they’re probably a quarter sober so it isn’t surprising that they fall over while trying to climb into it. Pam is up again in a moment but Cyril finds it a little difficult; usually when he’s drunk enough to find the floor, he’s long gone from the bar and just crawling into bed.

“Y’all picked a lil bouquet of whoopsie daisies there dintcha?” Hands seize Cyril around his arm and haul him upright until he’s gone from flat on his belly on the floor of the van to kneeling upright and leaning on Ray’s thigh for support. He looks up and Ray’s eyes are crinkled with laughter. “Did some of your own pre-gaming, huh? Good job, Cyril.”

It’s incredibly relieving to see that nobody is still in their work get-up for once. It makes him feel a little less ridiculous in the outfit he’s pulled together drunk and at the very last second. Ray’s squeezed into black pants that look spray-painted on; he’s paired them with the kind knee-high, silver-studded leather boots that bikers wear, a faded denim vest and, underneath it -

“Is that - are you wearing a crop top?”

“Joey Willard’s varsity football jersey, number 45.” Ray boasts. “I banged him in his dorm room right after the big game our senior year at Marshall, and I walked out in the morning wearing this shirt, still all taint-sweaty.”

“It’s - was it _that_ short and tight on _him?_ ”

“I hemmed it, dumbass.” The insult doesn’t sting much because Ray is still smiling and he’s not laughing meanly as he looks Cyril up and down. “Your sweater vest grew arms and a collar huh?” He teases.

“Can you two shut up already and get Cyril in a seat? We’ve got shit to do! Places to go!”

Cheryl’s strapless minidress - what very little of it exists - is navy blue and her heels and copious jewellery are yellow gold. She’s hanging over the back of the front passenger seat, her long, red hair also hanging loose but arrow-straight, and she must be rocking a lot of duct tape or a seriously heavy-duty strapless bra under that dress because the hemline doesn’t shift an inch down her chest.

“Pam!” She scowls at the space between Cyril and Ray’s seats. “Why are you all the way back there?”

“Bitch, it’s like I'm in a limousine if I sit here!”

“Well, how am I supposed to share your thermoses full of liquor then?”

“Getcha skinny ass back here, neckbones!”

“ _Ugh!_ ”

“Aw,” Krieger says softly, eyes mournfully following Cheryl as she clambers into the back of the van and sits down heavily beside Pam, takes a proffered thermos and takes a heavy slug from it. From where Ray has helped him up onto the vacant seat - still warm from Pam’s ass but thankfully not leaking any noxious odours - Cyril can see that Krieger has on dark jeans with a white belt and a Rush band shirt tucked into them. Inexplicably, he’s still wearing his lab coat but with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

“The Don Johnson look. Chicks dig it,” he says smoothly, tugging the lapels when he spies Cyril’s bemused expression in the rearview mirror. His smile fades slightly as Cheryl barks a short laugh from the back seat. Krieger clears his throat and shifts the van into gear.

A thermos nudges Cyril’s shoulder and, without questioning, he accepts it and takes a swig.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he coughs, throat burning and regret welling in his watery eyes. “What is this?”

“It’s a _Filthy Bohemian_!”

“What the shit is a _Filthy Bohemian_?” Ray asks on Cyril’s behalf who is still trying to recover from the assault on his tastebuds.

“It’s basically a _Green Russian_ with the absinthe-to-everything-else ratio fucked to shit! I added what Cyril gave me!”

“ _Jeezy Petes_.” After a half-second of beating back his better judgement, Cyril takes another swig and then hands the thermos to Ray who takes an actual gulp.

“That is hideous,” Ray says after he’s done wheezing. Cyril pointedly ignores how he hands the thermos to Krieger for a quick swig before taking it back.

“What else have you got?” Cyril asks, a little fearful under the swirling buzz that’s already making it difficult to feel his face. Pam rootles around in her huge purse - she could probably kill a man with it, or at least transport his corpse. Alcohol in various vestibules rattle against her questing hand.

“I dunno what’s in this. Cheryl mixed it,” she says of a slightly smaller thermos previously unseen that she pulls out and hands to Cheryl before grabbing another. “I did this one. It’s _Instant Death_.”

“Oh Jeez -”

“Yyyyuup. It’s Bicarda 151, Allclear, Schützie, lemon juice and salt - hey, what’s in the one you mixed, Ada Coleman?”

“Glengoolie Blue and diet cola.” Cheryl shrugs. “Maybe some grenadine? How the hell should I know? Your _Green Russians_ and _Global Annihilations_ fucked me up!”

“How do you afford something like _Glengoolie Blue_ -?” Ray says, his face a mask of horror.

“- and then add _soda_ to it?” Cyril finishes, equally stricken.

Cheryl narrows her eyes, opening the thermos and taking a sip.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s a _Global Annihilation_?” Krieger pipes up from the front, oblivious to Cyril and Ray’s utter scandalization. “That sounds like fun.”

“Tequila, Baiju, mampoer, and Spirytus! Nothing under one hundred and ten-proof in that sumbitch. I have some left in a flask here for ya if y’ain’t a bunch of giant pussies!”

Cyril and Ray share a look.

“I could only name one of those,” Cyril confesses.  

“Let’s save that one,” Ray decides. “Krieger can join us later when we drink it if he’s so eager for death.”

“Don’t we all work tomorrow?” Cyril says, suddenly remembering and exhaling hard through his nose in distress. It’s nearly eight and the gang is only just gearing up.

“Well now, that’s the best part,” say Ray, pulling a couple of suspiciously fat hand-rolled cigarettes out of his vest pocket. One he hands to Pam and lights it for her. The other he keeps for himself and takes a short drag before handing it to Cyril who doesn’t bother protesting about the legality of the contents before smoking it.

“Since the pirate-infected computers somehow ended up smashed to shit down the elevator shaft -” Pam says as Cheryl smothers an evil little giggle, “- and the mainframe is still pretty fucked, we get the day off tomorrow until Ms. Archer can get new computers!”

“Oh God,” Cyril whines, blowing smoke towards the ceiling and managing not to cough at the tight little burn in his lungs. The liquor and weed smothers most of the guilt. “As if we had room in the budget for that - wait, really? A whole day off?”

“Well,” Krieger says. “Ms. Archer didn’t exactly say that buuuut -”

“We have chosen to interpret it as such.”

“Say what you will but whoever snuck the virus onto our system,” Pam says slowly, taking a long drag from her joint and a longer pull from the thermos of _Instant Death_. “I just wanna give ‘em a big fat smooch on the mouth.”

“As punishment?”

“You know what, Ray -”

“Best birthday present _ever_ ,” Cheryl singsongs, leaning against Pam and nudging her until Pam hands over the joint. “Am I right?”

“Hell yeah! Now come on, Cyril. Pick a poison!”

Cyril forgoes _Instant Death_ , which possibly says something quite optimistic about his outlook for the evening. Instead, he reaches for Cheryl’s unholy Glengoolie and coke mixture - “we could call it a _Bloody Sunday_ ” “That’s an Irish reference, Cheryl, not Scottish” - and she gives it to him without argument, possibly because the joint is making her much more mellow. As it turns out, there’s only a little grenadine in it so Cheryl’s ignorant debasement of Glengoolie ends up tasting like a too-sweet, atrociously expensive whiskey and coke.

“Turn up!” Pam shouts as she and Cheryl pump their fists in time to whatever aggressive rock song Krieger has playing now.

Cyril leans over unsteadily and catches the whistle Ray’s wearing like a necklace on a long silver chain. Uncaring that it's likely been in Ray’s mouth several times before and has had spit and God knows what else blown through it, Cyril blows it hard and fast in some approximation of a rave beat.

“HUNCH HUNCH! WHAT WHAT!” Pam and Cheryl howl and whoop in accordance as Ray pulls out his own hipflask and hands it to Cyril. It’s rye, plain and simple and smooth on Cyril’s tongue. Krieger cranks the music.


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuuuuuck,” Cyril mumbles under his breath as he tries to keep the dartboard from doubling in his vision. No one hears him. The bar and its assembled patrons are loud below the mezzanine where the dartboard is tucked away along with a few empty booths and tables. The mezzanine itself is dark, illuminated only by the bar below and with the harsh red and blue and purple light of looping neon lettering spelling out beer brands on the wall, and it’s abandoned because not only does no one ever remember that there are bathrooms up here, but no one is allowed on it during the week - unless you have an in with the bartender which Pam clearly does.

“Why do you want to be able to use the upstairs bathrooms anyway?” Cyril remembers asking.

“In case I need to drop a load,” she tells him, loudly, shamelessly, cheerfully. “I like my privacy!” 

“Oh god, please just remember to use the men’s,” Cheryl groans. 

They’re both downstairs. Pam’s at the bar downing a plethora of multicolored shots in the centre of a ring of onlookers, among whom is Cheryl, shrieking the loudest as she cheers Pam on, and Krieger, one arm nervous around Cheryl’s waist while the other pumps in the air in time with the raucous chant of “Shots! Shots! Shots!” 

Cyril watches them for a while before turning back to the dartboard. The second dart he lets fly buries itself in the cork backing, just barely half an inch from the board itself. He sighs heavily and thinks of calling it quits.

“You know what your problem is?” says a voice behind him at the same time that its owner presses up against his back. Cyril doesn’t even have time to startle. “You think  _ way _ too much.” 

“In general or just playing this stupid game?” 

Ray laughs softly and squeezes Cyril’s shoulders before he answers: “Maybe a little of both, but I'm mostly talking about the darts.” 

“I thought I just had to find my centre?” Cyril grumbles, lowering the final dart in his hand and reaching for his drink. The tart, simple taste of a well-made martini is a refreshing relief after Pam’s thermoses of monstrous cocktails. He finishes it and leans back as the liquor warms him from the stomach out, head resting just above Ray’s collarbone. Ray, impressively, doesn’t stumble.

“You wanna know why Archer’s so good at this?"

Cyril tenses like he always does when someone brings up Archer to discuss all the skills he has that Cyril doesn’t. Ray rubs his arms as though trying to smooth out creases.

“Why?” Cyril cautions to ask. 

“Because he has a tiny, little animal brain.” Ray gesticulates with one hand neatly and pointedly as he talks. “It thinks of eating and drinking and fucking -” Cyril’s gut clenches involuntarily, “- and whatever minor task is at hand. He’s mostly raw, unchecked instinct just waiting to happen and sometimes it works - most times it doesn’t and he has to have mommy bail him out - but the upside is that he doesn’t have all these niggling thoughts clogging up his head when he needs to focus.” Ray taps his fingers against Cyril’s temple before returning them to his shoulder. 

“Oh.”

“That ain’t you, Cyril. You don’t have a tiny animal brain, so you have to learn to relax. Let the thoughts go.” Ray’s breath is warm against his ear and smells mostly of hard liquor with a hint of ashtray. It’s nice knowing he isn’t sober - there’s less of a chance either of them will remember this in the morning.

Cyril straightens up and glares at the dartboard. 

“And hey,” Ray’s whispering even though there’s no need given the music and general revelry downstairs. His hands have moved from rubbing Cyril’s shoulders to simply resting on his waist. “For what it’s worth? I'm sorry we were all super bitchy to you last time. That wasn’t cool.” 

Cyril knows he shouldn’t because it won’t make the little distractions go away - like how warm and solid this man is at Cyril’s back - but he turns his head anyway to look at Ray, searching for a joke, a trap he’s going to blunder into. Ray’s eyes are dark and heavy-lidded but they’re not waiting to catch someone unawares. His mouth on the other hand - Cyril hastily throws the dart, heart thudding in his chest. They both look at the dartboard in unison.

“There you go,” Ray says and, as he moves away, he’s grinning like he’s watched his protege take the first step towards becoming the master. “You just gotta actually look and aim next time, William Burroughs.” 

“Shut up,” Cyril says but he isn’t bitter at all seeing his third and final dart gleaming from where it protrudes from the inner green segment the outer rim marks as one point. It’s not a bullseye but he’s absurdly proud of it anyway. It’s a start.

 

* * *

 

“Is this Riverdance?” Cyril asks, finger waving in the general direction of the wall-mounted speakers wailing at them with fiddles and pipes.

“It’s an unholy abomination, is what it is,” Ray grumbles.

“EVERYONE BUY DRINKS FOR MY PRE-BIRTHDAY BITCH!” Cheryl screams, audible across the second - third? - establishment of the night as Ray shoulders his way to the bar and Cyril follows closely in his wake.

“Dontcha think you’re hanging onto Cheryl a little hard there, Krieger?” Ray asks when the man in question melts through the crowd as though summoned and takes up one of the three tequila shots Ray’s just bought. Krieger frowns at Ray, producing a small bag of vividly pink power and sprinkling a little in his shot before tossing it back. Neither Cyril nor Ray, apparently, want to touch on what they’ve just witnessed so they pretend it didn’t happen.

“My girlfriend was brutally murdered today,” Krieger says thickly, wiping his mouth before putting the shot down on the sticky surface of the bar. He doesn’t bother with a slice of lime.

“Oh my god!” Cyril gapes with his own shot halfway to his mouth. “Krieger, that’s horrible -” 

Ray nudges him and almost imperceptibly shakes his head. He mouths two words just a little louder than silence that the crowd almost swallow up: “Virtual girlfriend.” 

“So excuse  _ me _ , Ray, for trying to get back in the dating game and reigniting an old flame.” Krieger’s eyes find Cheryl in the crowd again. She’s sitting on one of Pam’s shoulders, holding Pam’s upraised hand for balance, and pouring the contents of one of the thermoses into Pam’s mouth; tracks of booze paint their sticky, glistening way down into her prodigious cleavage. Cheryl’s legs are primly crossed, which is probably a good thing at her current height or else everyone would be able to see straight up her scandalously short dress. It hardly comes a third of the way down her thighs. 

“We talked about babies once,” Krieger reminiscences thoughtfully. “She wasn’t interested.” 

Cyril winces, partly at the bite of salt still sitting, not yet washed away, on his tongue, and partly in sympathy. Whatever’s left over is devoted to feeling a peculiar mix of numb surprise and a little queasiness at this announcement. He reaches out and offers a consolatory pat to Krieger’s shoulder.

“That’s rough.” 

“I wish y’all every happiness,” Ray sighs, perhaps a little sardonically, then politely stifles a burp before tapping his tequila against Cyril’s and downing it. Cyril follows suit, taking the slice of lime Ray offers him afterwards straight from Ray’s fingers with his mouth. He doesn’t trust himself not to drop it should he grab for it.

He nearly chokes on it when Pam grabs him around the waist and crushes him against the bar when she staggers sideways. Cheryl, following her, apparently forgets how to stop without Pam’s bulk at her twelve o’clock and she nearly falls through the gap between Krieger and Ray, only stopped short by the two of them managing to catch her and get her standing again. Her hair and eyes are wild, her laugh doubly so. 

“Hey nutsacks! What’s hanging?!” Pam asks once she’s righted herself, fishing a few maraschino cherries out of a glass filled with nothing else and popping them into her mouth like they’re popcorn. She offers the glass to Cyril who takes two to flush away the taste of tequila and then vows to drink water wherever they go next if only so he won’t be flat on his ass by the time they drag themselves to wherever that fate, or Pam, is going to drag them at the end of the night. 

“Pretty good and drunk on actual  _ drinkable _ liquor we bought, I should say,” Ray snarks. Krieger just nods in agreement while Cyril smothers a laugh by borrowing the thermos of Glengoolie and coke - or  _ Fucking Sassenach _ as Krieger had eventually suggested in the van to general approval - and taking a swig. One last drink before he switches to water.

“Great! Because the bartender - punkass bitch - saw Cheryl feeding me thermos liquor and we’re getting kicked out!” As if her words have summoned him, a large and displeased-looking bouncer appears at her elbow. Even Krieger and Ray have to tip their heads back a little to look at him. The bouncer scowls at the thermos in Cyril’s hand who gulps and guiltily slips it back into Pam’s purse.

“This music sucks ass anyway!” Cheryl tells the bouncer loudly as she drags Ray and Krieger past him towards the door, leaving Pam to bring Cyril. “Let’s blow this joint people!  _ Before _ it burns to the ground!”

 

* * *

 

“Now this is more like it!” Pam yells in Cyril’s ear to be heard, her arms around his neck and perilously close to strangulation levels of tight. Cyril isn’t sure where she got the neon orange feather boa and armfuls of sparkly plastic bangles from but he also doesn’t much remember the trip from the last bar.

The club is almost pitch black but for the wildly coloured light show projected from above the DJ, which is actually a point in its favour; it’s much easier to sneak drinks from Pam’s bag without getting caught instead of spending more money. That said, the music is pretty much just bass, too deafening to be actually enjoyable, and, for a weekday, the dance floor is surprisingly packed with sweaty bodies. Cyril hasn’t taken off his jacket yet tonight - he doesn’t trust coat-checks, not when he’s wearing something with this much sentimental value - and he might actually be approaching a heatstroke. 

He can’t see Krieger - which would probably be very worrying if he could find it in himself to care; probably the man is sulking over the unprecedented loss of  _ Exit...Van Left _ \- but Cheryl,  who’s now wearing a torn, wet t-shirt over her dress, and Ray are dancing nearby. Ray has given Cheryl his whistle but, thankfully, she’s more preoccupied with the fistfuls of glowsticks she’s found. She’s gazing at them while she dances with the kind of rapturous expression she normally reserves for lit matches or delicately flickering lighter flames. She and Ray aren’t grinding on each other, exactly, but they’re dancing in such a way that any other guy wanting to get a look-in with Cheryl would think he would have to get through Ray first. It makes Cyril think.

“Pam?”

“What’s up?” She says over her shoulder, holding his hands on her waist.

“Why wasn’t I invited tonight? If I hadn’t called Cheryl - it’s no big deal - I’m not - I mean -” he trails off because he’s still too drunk to lie despite the plastic cups of water he’s been pounding back since they arrived. She turns around in his arms to face him and puts her mouth close to his ear so she doesn’t have to yell as loudly. 

“Honestly? I wanted to invite you but I -  _ we _ \- didn’t think you’d wanna come. We thought you’d find it a bit awkward hanging out outside of work with the crazy gal who honeypotted you into chokesex on a blimp, and her freaky half-on, half-off sidepiece, and two of the people who lined up with numbers to bang your ex on your desk!” 

“We all went for drinks - well, except Krieger - literally just last night -” 

“Not to mention the fact,” Pam interrupts, “that uh...I uh…kinda maybe sexually assaulted you at a baby shower earlier this year or whatever? Aaaaaaand I didn’t think you’d really wanna celebrate my birthday after that.”

Cyril sighs deeply. He’d been wondering when that particular incredibly blurry night was going to return to him in the form of a conversation no amount of alcohol in the world would prepare him for. He thinks about pulling her off the dance floor to talk somewhere more private but, really, nobody’s paying attention to them now and no one’s going to be able to eavesdrop successfully when there’s this racket going on. 

“Do you know  _ why _ I was unconscious in the bathroom?” he asks, more exasperated than anything else. 

“The whim of a capricious God? How the hell should I know? I didn’t slip you anything, that’s for sure. I just figured it was my lucky day -”

“ _J_ _ esus Christ _ , Pam. Well, I don’t know why either if  _ you _ didn’t slip me something. Look just - just forget about it. It’s okay.” 

“What, really?”

“Yeah, it’s - well, it’s not  _ okay _ but whatever. I’m over it. I barely remember anything. No harm done, no venereal diseases, no psychological trauma...well, nothing  _ new _ at any rate.”

“You wanna talk about it, kiddo?” she says in that weirdly soft and sympathetic way she has. It’s devious. She sounds like you can trust her with anything, like any deep, dark secret is safe with her.

“You wanna know why I called Cheryl?” Cyril realises he’s starting to sound more than a little hoarse and unhinged but his chest feels hot and tight and awful. Pam pulls back just enough for him to see how wide and earnest her eyes are. She nods, so he tells her about the phone call with his dad, modifying only the reason he felt he’d had a good enough day to call - he makes up something tricky he’d solved with one of the accounts and Pam buys it. 

“Holy shitsnacks, your dad really does sound like a gaping dickhole,” she says once he’s finished explaining his vicious cycle with food and adulterous sex. “I mean, I know I’ve talked shit about you disappointing him before but I didn’t know how bad it was. Jesus. Like  _ my _ dad is kind of an ass because he tells me I'll never find a husband but he only says that because he knows I made something of myself when I went to university and I know he’s really proud of me, deep down.” 

“ _ Someone _ will marry you,” Cyril says in an attempt to comfort her. Pam just laughs. 

“Ain’t nobody tying Pammy down anytime soon, you can count on that. But look, as a licensed - well, sort of - therapist, I advise that you ignore your dad because it sounds like he’s just bitter that he never accomplished anything more than he did and he’s just trying to make you feel like shit because you’re doing pretty well for yourself - relatively speaking. We should really think about starting another strike again -” 

“You really think so?”

“Yeah! The cost of living adjustment was definitely a victory but we have gotta do something about our health plan -”

“No, no! About my dad?”

“Oh! Definitely. And hey!” Pam’s face lights up the way it does when she’s got something especially juicy to share that she definitely shouldn’t. “If it makes you feel any better, Ray and I didn’t actually bang Lana! In fact, she didn’t bang anyone in the office! She brought them in one by one and made them pay her money so they could  _ say  _ they banged her!” 

“...I didn’t really think she’d bang most of the guys in the office, let alone all of them, but seriously? Not a single one?”

“Really! Not a single one. Well, just me, but not because I had a number. I cried because nobody would bang me so I she pretended I was Alex Karras!” 

“ _ Jeezy Petes _ -”

“But don’t tell her I told you that! She’ll kill me!”

“I won’t tell her.” Cyril actually means it. He doesn’t know what he’d do with the information anyway. It’s not as though it means much. He and Lana are still broken up because he cheated like a fucking sex-addled idiot and not even Malory’s enforced institutional trip upstate over a summer was enough to fix him. If nothing else though, it makes him sort of laugh that all the idiots in the office know that they, and everyone else in the office except Cyril and Archer, did  _ not _ fuck Lana Kane but are insisting they did to people who know better.

“I am really sorry about the sexual assault thing though, bud.” Pam shakes him a little bit until he looks at her again. She puts her mouth so close to his ear her lips brush hot and damp against it. She’s loud but slurring. “That was just shitty. I’d had a few melon balls and you were all disheveled and passed out - like a sexy dude sleeping beauty - and on the toilet….it was pretty sploosh-worthy. To be honest,  _ you’re _ pretty sploosh-worthy.”

“I - what, really?”

“Yeah, in like a super nerdy sort of way? I can’t explain it. You wear glasses and sweater vests but you seem like the kind of guy who could, I dunno, just snap and do a girl super dirty all over your desk. If you learned how to loosen up, that is.”

“Well that’s....good to know, I guess.”

“Yeah. But no seriously. That doesn’t really make it okay that I tried to sit on your dick while -”

“Just don’t do it again,” Cyril says quickly, cutting her off. “Please?”

“Sure thing, bud,” she says, grinning.

“...thanks, Pam.” He hugs her because she’s pretty much that close anyway and her reciprocating squeeze feels nice, even if she is hot and damp and smells strongly of sweat, heated perfume, and spilled alcohol. “You’re not actually terrible at this, you know. The whole counselling thing.”  

“Duh and or hello! It’s my job, dickbag.” 

At that moment, Cheryl yells something unintelligible and the both of them look over to see her sitting on Krieger’s shoulders, two red glowsticks in hand, directing the moves of surrounding dancers. Ray is standing by like he’s preparing to catch Cheryl if Krieger isn’t holding her securely enough. 

“Jesus God, I love that crazy bitch,” Pam confesses. “But I’ll murder you if you tell her.” 

Cyril makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a despairing  _ oh god _ then tells Pam he’s going to the bathroom so that she’ll disentangle from him and let him make his way to the edge of the dance floor. Leaning against one of the high round tables there, he sees she’s simply found someone else to grind on. Watching how she moves, seeing the hem of her dress hike further up as she straddles this butch girl’s thigh and shakes her ass against some guy’s crotch, he looks down in a moment of liquor-fueled paranoia to make sure she hasn’t left a huge, wet sploosh-stripe on his jeans. When he looks up again, he has company.

“I’m going for a smoke!” Ray says and Cyril reads his lips more than he actually hears him. “Are you coming? You look like you’re dying in here!”

The air outside is a rush of cold relief as they emerge from the basement-level club. Cyril’s breath puffs out in a silvery vapour that mingles with Ray’s cigarette smoke. Despite the rapidly cooling sweat in his hair and neck, he’s still hot enough that he removes his brown leather jacket, folding it carefully over his arm, and rolls up the sleeves of his dark blue sweater.

“I haven’t seen you take that jacket off all night. Pro-tip: it only looks sexy when it’s not making you sweat buckets and, spoiler alert, you look like you took a swim in Mama June’s armpit.” 

“It was my grandfather’s during the Great War,” Cyril says, rolling his eyes and running a hand through his damp hair to neaten it. “I'd never forgive myself if I lost it in some club or got it stolen. I sort of regret even wearing it out.” 

“So why  _ did _ you wear it out?” 

Is the little half-lie he thinks up more pathetic than the truth? That he wanted to remind himself of a lost connection between himself and a gentle old man who used to tell him stories about Cyril’s mom -  _ his _ late daughter - and how she’d be so proud to know what a good, clever boy he was growing up to be. 

“You all gave me about ten minutes to get ready. I threw an outfit together and thought I looked too much like a square without it,” he says, hoping that Ray won’t see right through him, but he shakes the thought off as unwarranted paranoia. Ray is uncannily perceptive but he doesn't know anything about Cyril’s childhood - hopefully. 

“It’s cute. The look works for you.”

“What look? A square?” 

“Yeah.” Ray smirks around the filter of his cigarette. “I mean don’t get me wrong, the jacket looks good too. You somehow pull it off.” 

“Thanks?”

Ray’s still in just his modified football jersey and denim vest. The night isn’t exactly freezing but without appropriate outerwear, it’s probably uncomfortably cold. It’s too dark to see if Ray has goosebumps on his arms and bared midriff. 

“You didn’t bring a jacket?” 

“I got dressed while getting ripped on rye,” Ray admits and Cyril realises he sounds jittery because Ray’s trying to keep his teeth from chattering. “Oh, and the weather forecast is a lying bitch.” 

Cyril hugs his leather jacket a little tighter before holding it out. Ray just stares at it and then at him.

“You don’t have to -” 

“If you were Archer or Krieger or Cheryl or even Pam, I wouldn’t.” 

“I’m not asking you to -” 

“No, I know. And that’s why it’s okay.” 

Ray hands him the cigarette he’s holding, nodding to indicate Cyril should share it. Cyril takes a few nervous puffs as Ray pulls on the jacket. It’s a little big on Cyril - gramps was not a small man in his prime - and thus quite a bit loose on Ray. He doesn’t fill out the shoulders like Cyril does and the sleeves hang down to the middle of his palms. Nevertheless, he somehow manages to make it look cool and that does something funny to Cyril’s gut which he ignores. 

“Cyril, this is a seriously nice jacket.”

“Yeah, they really knew how to make ‘em back then.” 

“When do you want it back?” 

_ When we’re back inside _ , Cyril thinks about saying. He  _ should _ say it but Ray isn’t shivering anymore and he’s ashing the cigarette Cyril’s handed back to him a careful distance from the jacket.

“End of the night is fine. Just promise me you won’t get vomit or someone’s drink all over it or something.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ray promises.

“Gentlemen,” greets a low voice just behind Cyril’s ear, making him yelp and jump and stagger into Ray who puts an arm out to steady him. 

“Krieger.” 

“Where are the girls - Pam. Cheryl. Where are Pam and Cheryl?” Cyril says, clearing his throat as he steps out from under Ray’s arm. 

“Last I saw they were grinding on each other and kissing.” 

“No way. 

“Ooooh yeah -”

“And you seriously expect us to believe you’re not still in there watching?”

“A man can only get so erect. I needed to take a break but I'm kinda hoping to get in the middle there before the end of the night.”

“Of course you are.” Ray sighs and draws Cyril’s jacket a little tighter as he stamps out his cigarette. 

Krieger ignores Ray’s tone and takes out the bag of pink powder from earlier and carefully pours some directly onto his tongue. He makes a face and smacks his lips before offering the bag to the both of them. Cyril and Ray exchange another look. 

“I'm afraid to ask -” 

“- but sometimes you just gotta open Pandora’s box. What is it Krieger? Will it give me uncontrollable diarrhea?” 

“A twenty four-hour erection?” 

“Will I start developing horns?”

“Or breasts?”

“What? God no!” Krieger sounds extremely affronted. “It’s just sour cherry fun mix!” 

“Oh.” 

“Well then -” 

Cyril feels a little bad for jumping to conclusions and takes some, if only to get rid of the lingering taste of Ray’s cigarette, and the memory of Ray’s mouth around the same filter, from his tongue. Ray follows suit.

“Aaaand also LSD,” Krieger finishes, having watched them take the powdered candy in silence. Ray chokes and coughs.

“God damn it, Krieger!”

“What the hell!” 

“Krieger! My drug of choice is ecstasy! Way sexier and far less likely to give me mind-shredding hallucinations!”

“Ooh, I have some of that too!” Krieger pulls out another little plastic bag, this one filled with blue powder. “It’s blue raspberry flavour!” 

“Well I can’t have it now if you’ve just dosed me with LSD!” Ray yells as he slaps the bag out of Krieger’s hand who pouts as he crouches to pick it up again.

“Why not?” 

“Seriously?” 

“Oh god.” Cyril puts a hand out to brace himself against the building. “How long until it takes effect?” 

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ray mutters.

“That’s faster than those breath strips!” Cyril cries, hand going to his throat where he lowers the zip on his sweater as far as it will go. Already he feels warm and a little dizzy. 

“Yeah I’ve been making some major breakthroughs lately. But don’t worry. This stuff is fast-acting but not super potent. At worst you’ll see a few fat pink elephants flying around or whatever. You’ll maybe want to touch your nipples - I definitely recommend it. It. Feels.  _ Awesome _ .” 

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad -” 

“I mean there’s also a one in ten chance you’ll have a crazy bad reaction and tear off all your clothes and possibly die. I’m no doctor but - I mean. I am definitely a doctor -”

“Krieger, shut up.” Ray sounds far too calm for what the situation warrants but then that’s probably to be expected if he regularly experiments with drugs on the club scene. Not that Cyril knows whether he does or not for definite but...well...Cyril just assumes he does because Ray is...gay.

Cyril feels a bit bad for even thinking it, perhaps because he’s entered the bargaining stage of grief and he realizes that casting stereotypical aspersions on co-workers is no way to get through the pearly gates, even if he is only thinking such things in the privacy of his own mind. Presumably. Hopefully Krieger hasn’t completed a mind-reading device yet - 

“Ray, if I die, you can have the jacket,” Cyril says faintly, attempting to wade free of the downward spiral of his thoughts. 

“You’re not gonna die,” Ray says, patting his shoulder reassuringly. “Come on, let’s go get some water in us and dance it out.” 

If Krieger was telling the truth about Cheryl and Pam, they certainly aren’t making out anymore. They are dancing close though, Cheryl’s back rubbing against Pam’s ample bosom, and, between the two of them, they seem to have enticed two men. One is flush against Cheryl’s front, rocking against her like they’re fucking with clothes on - Cyril has to divert his attentions elsewhere to keep himself from needing to take care of an immediate need in the bathroom - and the other is chewing on Pam’s ear and has his arms around her waist. Krieger’s eyes narrow and he beelines towards the four of them with a threateningly cheerful “excuse me.” 

“Was that a syringe in Krieger’s hand? Or is that the LSD talking?” Cyril asks as Ray hands him a plastic cup of water.

“Ehhh....pick one?”

 

* * *

 

“But which one, do you think, is less likely to give me salmonella?” Cyril asks sometime later as he squints up at the painfully bright yellow backlit menu. He’s leaning pretty heavily against Ray - who still doesn’t stagger even a little despite the liquor and the drugs; Cyril’s beginning to think he’s a little bit magical - enough that Ray’s just given up on nudging him away and has put a steadying arm around him. Ray smells faintly sweet, like vanilla and that weird, clean woody scent, under the leather of Cyril’s jacket and the sizzle of spiced, fatty meat. Cyril blames it on the LSD still pulsing through his blood - which is also doing funny things to the little cartoon food items on the menu - and the leftover rye in Ray’s flask that they’ve been sharing on the walk from the club.

“God knows. Probably all of it. Doesn’t Pam usually get lamb?” 

Pam is sitting on one of the cracked vinyl-covered stools at a high table along the wall, her dress rucked up dangerously high. She’s picking unidentified chunks of something covered in a creamy white sauce out of her donair and pushing them into her mouth, humming contentedly. Orangey grease trickles down her other hand to her wrist, hindered by her plastic jewellery. A small pig that a short, smiling Latino man has on a leash is snuffling around her ankles, searching for fallen morsels. 

“She has the stomach of a vulture,” Cyril whispers back, knowing he sounds like a conspiracy theorist trying to be convincing but Ray makes a face like he’s on board with it.  

“The chicken looks like it has texture? That usually means it’s real, right?”

“That will not make it any easier when it reappears at either end -”

Ray snorts hideously and they both devolve into wheezy giggles behind their hands until Cheryl looks over from where she’s eating the soggy lettuce and tomato off Krieger’s donair in favour of ignoring her own plate of cheese fries - which she’d ordered with a determination that seemed to spit in the face of her lactose intolerance. Her eyes are narrowed with suspicion, or perhaps that’s just thanks to the joints from earlier. 

“What are you two snickering about?” 

“We’re still deciding!” Ray retorts. “Keep your panties unknotted.” 

“I’m not wearing any.” 

“Hey, me neither!” Krieger looks thrilled. 

“That makes three of us,” Pam interrupts in a husky voice, sucking grease and sauce off her fingers like she owes them for slaking her lust. “No rush, guys. I could go for another round.”

“Phrasing,” Cyril mumbles into Ray’s shoulder before anyone else can and secretly revels in his triumph when Ray pats his cheek and tells him “good job” before suggesting they just get fries. 

When they arrive heaped up in a grease-spotted paper tray, they’re glistening with oil from the fryer and nearly snowy white with salt but at least they’re hot and crispy. Ray feeds them both fries, liberally dipped in ketchup to neutralise the worst of the salt, while Cyril is in charge of holding onto what is, essentially, a small tub of lemon-lime soda. Normally, he’d be bothered by the fact that he’s putting his lips on the same straw that Ray is but after sharing a hipflask, a joint, and a few cigarettes he’s gone past the point where he could reasonably complain. 

Pam tucks into her second donair with as much relish as the first. The noise is indecent. Krieger and the short Latino guy - whose name Cyril doesn’t remember and, at this point, it’s rude to ask - watch her with abject fascination while Cheryl takes the opportunity to steal Krieger’s slush puppy and drink half of it.

“They could find entirely new civilizations in her digestive track, I bet,” Ray says of Pam in wonderment and disgust. Cheryl overhears and throws one of Krieger’s sliced pickles at him. Her lips are stained faintly green.

“Shut your cakehole, pornstache! Who are you? William Beaumont?” 

“Yowch. Burn.” Krieger says around a mouthful of donair missing most of its contents.  

“Cake? Holy shit, cake!” Pam’s eyes light up with a kind of ravenous fervour as she stuffs the last messy piece of donair into her mouth. “Does the pre-birthday bitch get pre-birthday cake, neckbones?” 

Cheryl makes a speculative sound in the back of her throat as she slides her unfinished fries over to Pam, shaking her head at Pam’s squinty-eyed “ _ did you put glue on them? _ ” 

“Oooonly if by cake you mean the kind you find in strippers’ panties.”  

“Yaaaay!” Pam claps her hands in delight before grabbing at the fries. “Just like the song! We want that cake cake cake!” 

“And you still get to eat it!”

Cyril, on his part, tenses at the mention of strip club. He’d told Ms Archer once that alcohol tended to exacerbate an underlying personality disorder and that very night he’d got an erection merely from the thought of crotchless panties; he isn’t particularly enamoured with the idea of exposing himself to more than just the thought, especially not while in the company of people he works with on a daily basis.  

“Ray, I should - I need to go home,” he says quietly, not wanting to catch Pam’s attention as she slips off her stool and staggers away to destroy the single toilet in the establishment. The Latino guy follows her and the pig follows him and Krieger follows the pig.

“Aw come on, Cyril. Don’t pussy out on us now.” 

“It’s just -” 

“What? You scared you’ll sink all your cash and your dick into some callgirl on a pole?” Cyril knows that Ray knows he’s struck gold when Cyril can’t think of a response and simply hangs his head in red-faced shame. Ray elbows him in the side with a wink. “Don’t you worry. I’ll keep you out of trouble -”  

“I need you to go to Carvels and get a cake,” Cheryl interrupts, voice low, bodily squeezing between them and making Cyril jump for the umpeenth time that night.

“Or not,” Ray mutters.

“Or not what? Never mind. I don’t care. I’ll get Pam to Double D’s in the limo - that son of a bitch better still be parked out front - while you go get us cake. Take Krieger with you -” 

“Uh, are you forgetting that it’s like -” Cyril checks his watch, focusing intensely to keep it from doubling up before giving up and guessing, “- one in the morning? Carvels is closed.” 

“That sounds like a  _ you _ problem,” she says airily, swallowing a hiccup as Ray’s brows soar to the lofty heights that indicate he’s about to get pretty bitchy.

“Y’know -” he begins but his mouth snaps shut as Cheryl yanks open her clutch and starts pulling out bills. They’re crumpled and sweat-stained but they’re clearly twenties and fifties. Cyril’s eyes go wide as she shoves them into his hands.

“This should cover a  _ Fudgy the Whale _ right? Wait, get two. Damn it! How much could they possibly be?” Her tone grows impossibly aggravated as though Cyril is arguing with her instead of mutely accepting the money she just keeps pulling from her clutch. 

“Again -” Ray is probably about to reiterate the previous point of Carvels’ business hours not catering to drunken, past-midnight pre-birthdays but the accountant in Cyril is yelling and banging pots from under a fuzzy blanket of liquor and weed and LSD.

“How are you affording all this?” Cyril frowns, tallying up the multitude of bills he now holds. 

“What are you? An accountant?” 

“Wha -? Yes!” Ray says, exasperated on Cyril’s behalf. That’s nice of him. Cheryl rolls her eyes and expels a gusty sound of disgust and some exasperation of her own, which is hardly fair. 

“Well are you  _ my _ accountant, Cyril? No. You’re not. I don’t have one of those. Now mind your own dicky beeswax and -” 

* * *

 

 

“ - get your chin offa my shoulder! Krieger!” Ray hisses, jabbing backwards with his elbow as Cyril shushes them both desperately, eyes darting around. The alley behind Carvels is deserted but Cyril’s sure he sees shapes lurking in the dark, twisting in the steam that rises from the grate of a nearby vent. He wants to ask Krieger how long the LSD is supposed to last again but when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a thin, panicked whine.  

“Oh god, oh god, what are we doing? What  _ are _ we doing?” 

Krieger’s eyes are big and round and intent as they peer over Ray’s shoulder, crowded uncomfortably close against the other man’s back. He remains immune - or perhaps willfully deaf - to Ray’s threats of smothering him with a industrial-sized bag of garbage unless he makes some damn space. 

“I believe the correct term is  _ burglary _ .” 

“For the crime of which, we could potentially spend twenty years in prison!” 

“Jesus, really?” Ray looks up from where he’s picking the lock on the back door with a set of tools Krieger produced from inside his lab coat - following the trend of the night, neither Ray nor Cyril bothered asking. “Twenty years for a bit of ice cream cake?” 

“I mean -” Cyril backtracks, “- at the outside -”  

“Well, actually, it’s more breaking and entering. It’s only burglary if we steal the cake instead of putting some cash in the register.” Krieger rubs his beard thoughtfully and stares out down the alley like he’s keeping watch, ignoring Cyril’s indignantly spluttered correction of such blatant misinformation. He asks, without looking around at them: “Did Cheryl give you money?” 

Cyril opens his mouth to answer but nearly bites through his lip on a meep of fright when Ray suddenly puts a hand on his arm and squeezes. His pointed look cuts through the drugged, boozy veil Cyril's wearing like a virgin bride and it hooks and tugs on something visceral and greedy within. 

“Nope,” Ray says, popping the p, his dark eyes never leaving Cyril’s. 

“No, she did not.” Cyril confirms.

“Oh. Well then. I was right. Burglary it is.” 

“Hurray,” Cyril says weakly. “After all -” 

“Don’t!” Ray whisper-shrieks as the lock clicks open under his fingers but Cyril is undeterred. 

“ - what could possibly -” 

 

* * *

 

“ - GO WRONG, CYRIL? WAS THAT WHAT YOU SAID? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? RIGHT BEFORE EVERYTHING  _ DID _ GO WRONG?” 

Police sirens wail behind them, losing volume as they sprint at full tilt away from the shop they’ve abandoned in a hurry. Either someone had seen the pencil-thin beam from Krieger’s flashlight from outside or Carvels had a silent alarm because Ray was adamant he’d disabled all the security systems he’d seen. Regardless of how, there are cops after them.

“WELL PERHAPS IF WE HADN’T ATTEMPTED A BURGLARY  -” 

“DOES IT STILL COUNT AS A BURGLARY IF WE DIDN’T ESCAPE WITH THE GOODS?” 

“YES! And we did escape with the goods. Krieger has them!” 

Cyril hopes that’s the case anyway. He’s so turned around and is barely keeping his feet under him as he runs. He doesn’t know if Krieger is in front or behind because Cyril can’t see him. He only knows that it’s Ray fleeing alongside him which strikes him as absurdly funny because Ray is the field agent - shouldn’t he be pulling ahead and leaving Cyril in his dust?

“Moot point, Cyril!” Ray yells as they clumsily skid to a halt in front of a tall chain link fence and Cyril is very grateful Ray hasn’t abandoned him because it takes the two of them, plus a lot of muffled swearing and fear-fuelled effort, to heave Cyril over the top of it and for Ray to scramble up afterwards. After their feet hit the concrete on the other side, they keep running for another four blocks until Ray seizes Cyril’s arm and yanks him sideways under the deep set lintel of a fire door.

“I turned. Off. The goddamn. Alarms,” Ray grits out through his teeth between sucking in chest-heaving breaths. Cyril leans back against the brick behind him and sends a silent plea upwards to the Virgin Mother as he tries to get his own breath back.

“So what’s the plan?” he gasps.

“Plan?”

“If the cops happen by and they’re like  _ why are you here and clearly winded? _ ” Cyril takes stock of Ray’s arm braced against the wall just beside his head. He isn’t sure if the booze he smells is from his own breath or Ray’s gusting over his cheek. “Do we pretend we’re just two guys out for a stroll, making out in an alley -? Wait, what am I saying. Can’t we get arrested for that?”

“What year do you think this is?” Ray shrugs at Cyril's lost look. “I’ve blown enough cops in my time to know that they probably will not care - especially if you let them join.”

“You’ve - you know what. I don’t have a response to that. So what happens if we get caught by a cop you haven’t blown -?” 

“Well then I guess I shoot him and we run some more,” Ray says, exasperated.

“Jesus, Ray! Wait -” Cyril looks him up and down, searching for any unexplained bulges. “Are you...packing?”

Ray sucks in a breath to answer and then stops.

“I think I  _ was _ at the beginning of the night but somewhere between losing Krieger’s van to the impound lot and getting locked in that club that closed early -”

“When did we -? No never mind. Don’t care. Couldn’t we just bribe them? The cops?”

“Sure.  _ You _ can if you want. With what? Your half of the whole three hundred bucks we got from Cheryl?”

Cyril refuses to pout, but Ray doesn’t have to sound so disparaging.

“Well I mean it’ll only be about half of that.”

“Why?”

“I left half of my half of three hundred at Carvels for all the cake. It was kinda hard to figure out how to get the till open but I did it!” He’s pleased with himself. Technology is usually his Achilles’ Heel when he’s had a bit to drink. 

“Cyril.”

“Yes?”

“You opened one of the tills. To put. Money. In it. For the cake?” Ray says it so each point is clearly punctuated and Cyril swallows nervously. 

“Well yeah, I wasn’t  _ not _ gonna leave something and - why are you looking at me like that?”

“Cyril,” Ray grits out, and somehow he sounds like the equivalent of physically shaking someone. 

“What? Surely you’re not objecting to - oh.” Cyril supposes it’s possible he tripped an alarm opening one of the tills. 

“Yeah.”

“Well, now I feel a bit silly.” He smiles sheepishly as Ray closes his eyes and sighs, cursing under his breath.

“ _ God _ -!”

 

* * *

 

“Daaaaaaaamn!” Pam croons, lower lip between her teeth as her eyes follow the swaying hips of a pretty dancer in sparkling silver stilettos. “It is Pam’s lucky night.”

Cyril’s never seen her look so content. She’s absentmindedly spooning ice cream and sticky fudge cake that definitely isn’t from Carvels into her mouth, makeup a hot mess and her breasts half spilling out of her food and booze-splattered dress. She’s sitting between Krieger and Cheryl, letting them help themselves to the hard-won pre-birthday cake she has in front of her, while she dreamily stares up at the scantily clad dancers with their mile-long legs and pert asses dusted with shimmering glitter. 

On his part, Cyril doesn’t know why he was so worried. They’re lovely, the dancers, all kinds of tempting even if he can’t figure out where his glasses have gone and he can’t really see anything properly. Thick, gorgeous curves moving enticingly to the music. A sluggish sort of arousal beats in his veins but he’s not hard - which is mostly to do with the alcohol, probably - and he’s regarding them with the kind of idle interest he can remember from watching porn with Lana; it was fun, even stimulating, but nowhere near as captivating as the body-warmth of a very beautiful and very real woman in his arms. It’s not exactly the same, but Ray’s shoulder, still wrapped in Cyril’s grandfather’s jacket, pressed up against his is still tangible and pleasant in a way that can’t really be matched by the sight of half-naked ladies working to pay their rent. 

“Can I offer you a spoon?” Cyril says, a little balefully, as Ray swipes his finger through the melting ice cream in Cyril’s little styrofoam bowl and licks it clean.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Must you?” Cyril whines when Ray does it again. “When did you last wash your hands? God knows what’s on this table top -”

“God ain’t got nothing to do with what’s on this table top, honey.”

He’s the only one with his back to the dancers, lounging nonchalantly on his stool, completely uninterested in all the skin on display. Cyril has noticed Ray’s eyes have wandered once or twice over to the only guy tending bar but as they’re all still drinking out of Pam’s thermoses - none of the club’s staff cares so long the cover charge is paid and the girls get tipped - Ray hasn’t gone up to talk to him under the pretense of ordering a drink.

“You gonna go pick him up?”

“Mmmm.” Ray pulls a contemplative face. “Dunno yet. He’s not that cute and I doubt  _ he’s _ gonna feed me that particularly fudgy piece of cake.” He waggles his brows at Cyril, who giggles, mind falling below the gutter and into the sewer. Ray swats him when he’s had a moment to puzzle it out. “Damn, Cyril, you’re nasty.”

Cyril scoops up the chocolatiest bit of cake and some ice cream, still snorting. 

“Do I need to make some airplane noises?”

“I swear to God, Cyril -”

“Nyoooom.”

“Give me that!” Ray grabs Cyril’s hand and guides the dripping spoon to his mouth with a single perfunctory motion. “Holy shit, you are  _ drunk _ .”

“ _ You’re _ drunk!”

“We’re all pretty ripped, guys,” Pam burbles as she coaxes one of the dancers to come closer and squat down so Pam can feed her some cake and pay the woman for deigning to suck it off her fingers. “I’m so hammered. I think I love you.”

“What’s she got that I don’t?” Cheryl complains sharply, hiccuping and nearly slipping off her stool. Her eyes are hurling daggers at the innocuous dancer, alight with jealous rage and the promise of violence. Krieger makes a double-handed gesture in front of his chest with a regretful look tossed Cheryl’s way. 

“An addiction that isn’t glue?” Ray mutters.

“A functioning moral compass?” Cyril suggests.

“Not _ her _ . All you guys, ya ding dongs. That includes you, neckbone. Although -” Pam bats her eyelashes at the dancer “- I could love you too. Sweet Jesus, I grew up on a farm and I ain’t seen milkers bigger ‘n yours, sexy.” 

Cyril turns back to Ray, who’s wearing the faintest edge of a frown and eyeing up the bartender again.

“So? Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you gonna pick him up? You really don’t think he’s cute?”

“Why are you so interested? Do  _ you _ think he’s cute?”

“I don’t -” Cyril blinks owlishly. He hasn’t actually spared the guy in question more than a glance. “I don’t know. If you don’t think he’s - No? You’d know better than I would.” Cyril clamps his mouth shut as Ray starts to laugh.

“Would it  _ bother _ you if I went and picked him up?”

Cyril doesn’t say anything, choosing to take a bite of cake instead. Of course it wouldn’t. Ray’s only a coworker, albeit the one Cyril possibly hates the least, but a coworker nevertheless. Still, this evening’s been pretty fun, hasn’t it? He reaches out and tugs on the sleeve of his own jacket, mildly concerned that if he ever even sees it again after tonight, should Ray abscond with some guy, it will be stained with God knows what. Ray taps his hand away gently like he’s admonishing Cyril for fretting. 

“I’m not gonna pick him up.”

“No?”

“Nah. It’s more fun hanging out with you losers.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No guy’s ever let me wear his jacket before, y’know,” Ray says casually. “Let alone for almost a whole night out.”

“Oh?” Cyril watches without complaint as Ray swipes some more ice cream with his finger. “Well, they should. You take good care of them.” 

Ray smiles.


End file.
